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Did Plato Challenge An Individual To Follow His Conscience Essay

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Plato challenges an individual to follow his conscience. Socrates is challenged with facing death or escaping and relocating to a new area where others will not know of his prior sentence. It is a decision of whether to follow your conscience and do what you consider the right thing to do or to disregard the issue and feel guilty about it for the rest of your life. In the end, Socrates feels he must see the sentence out even if it means death but he is sending a message to his family that he is not above any laws…there is a reason for laws and others must be willing to abide by those laws otherwise there could be mass chaos to follow (Plato, Crito, n.d.). In today’s world, we have the judicial system that determines whether an individual is found guilty of breaking any laws. An individual is considered innocent until proven guilty. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the situation at hand, our judicial system has expanded to areas that may not be as complimentary as in the days of Plato. We now have lawyers who look for any loop hole to get a dismissal or innocent ruling even though the person may actually be guilty. Principles have changed to what is more advantageous for an individual. It is my belief that our current day government has taken a step backwards in this respect compared to …show more content…

Few individuals were more apt to rule in ways that would be more advantageous for their interested party while many individuals would provide more sound decision. Communities are made up of diverse groups of individuals and not everyone will agree on who should be at the head of the decided government. Communities consist of the rich, poor, working, educated, and non-educated. Many times the middle class was the mediator and laws were made to keep perspective on all levels of the community (Aristotle,

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